Ethnographic notes on Kongo musical instruments

African Arts, Summer, 2002 by Wyatt MacGaffey

(7.) A finely engraved dibu bell, surmounted by a carved monkey, is part of one of the oldest minkisi in the British Museum (55.12-20.103, before 1855), together with a single iron bell, pieces of basketry, and any number of tightly knotted little bundles (MacGaffey & Harris 1993: fig. 46).

(8.) British Museum 1905 11.11.59; Soderberg 1956:103, fig. 7.

(9.) The costume suggests a date of 1880 [ or -] 10.

(10.) An nkisi of this name and description, with kunda attached, is in the Etnografiska Museum (Folkens Museum), Stockholm, 19.2.1132.

(11.) In an example of nkisi Ngovo, such constructions are called mavosi a bivotika, from the verb vota, "to braid" (MacGaffey 1991:110).

(12.) Miniature bellows turn up from time to time in minkisi. Their significance remains unexplained, although they are linked through smithing to the powers of simbi spirits. The "puffing" action of bellows (fula) is associated with the movement of spirits (mpeve).

References cited

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Devisch, R. n.d [1995]. "The Slit Drum and the Birth of Divinatory Utterance in the Yaka Milieu," in Objects: Signs of Africa, ed. L. de Heusch. Brussels: Snoeck-Dukaju & Zoon.

DjeDje, J. C. (ed.). 1999. Turn Up the Volume! A Celebration of African Music. Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History.

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Laman, K. E. 1936. Dictionnaire kikongo-francais, avec une etude phonetique decrivant les dialectes les plus importants de la langue dite Kikongo. Brussels: Librairie Falk, G. van Campenhout.

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MacGaffey, W. 1983. Modern Kongo Prophets. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

MacGaffey, W. 1991. Art and Healing of the BaKongo Commented by Themselves. Stockholm: Folkens Museum.

MacGaffey, W. 2000. Kongo Political Culture: The Conceptual Challenge of the Particular. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

MacGaffey, W. and M. D. Harris. 1993. Astonishment and Power. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.

Soderberg, B. 1956. Les Instruments de musique au Bas-Congo et dans les regions avoisinantes. Stockholm: Ethnographic Museum of Sweden.

Soderberg, B. 1966. "Antelope Horn Whistles with Sculptures from the Lower Congo," Ethnos 21:5-33.

Stelzig, C. 1998. "`Altar of Maloango': Being, Non-Being and Existence of an Object from West Africa," Baessler-Archiv n.f., band 46:369-427.

Van Dijk, R., R. Reis, and M. Spierenburg (eds.). 2000. The Quest for Fruition through Ngoma. Oxford: James Currey.

Vansina, J. 1969. "The Bells of Kings," Journal of African History 10, 2:187-97.

WYATT MACGAFFEY, an emeritus professor of social sciences at Haverford College, has written extensively on African politics, history, culture, and art.